Side
by Trenzas
Summary: "Like the way a hill has opposite slopes, a person has more than just one side, a part where they're more than what they appear to be but, I must say that my mother has the most interesting side of all" What if fic Please read and review, no strings attached, hehehe!
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Hello, here I am again, trying to write something one more time. I wasn't sure if uploading this or not but, i got bored of keeping it all to myself, so here it is :D Please crtics are welcomed in here so if you happen to disagree with something you read, or you don't get what it is that i'm writing about, post it, the wort thing that would happen would be me replying something back and i'm very polite i asure you, ell at least i try.

Oh, this is a RoV "what if" fic, just in case someone's wondering what on earth this is and the other thing is that english is not my mother language so if you find some errors please let me know.

Thanks in advance and i hope this fic makes sense, the best thing would be that someone enjoys it...oh and this has othing to do with this fic but, yes i'll keep translating the other fic, but please be patient i do not always have time.

Bye and please read and review!

Disclaimer: not mine.

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><p>SIDE<p>

**Part one**

AS A CHILD I KNEW EXACTLY HOW MY MOTHER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE, which is no original notion; all children think they know absolutely everything there is to know about their mothers but, in one time or another they realize that what they took for granted was nothing more than a comfortable account.

Like the way a hill has opposite slopes, a person has more than just one side, a part where they're more than what they appear to be but, I must say that my mother has the most interesting side of all.

She's not the typical female pigeonhole you would see walking by, like a fisherman's wife selling you goods in a filthy market while managing to control to their wild progeny or the one up to her elbows with a thousand household chores to look after like cooking and cleaning. Going up to through the social latter, you would see the one that's manning with her housekeeper or the servants, bringing up to her daughters, encouraging her sons and husband to achieve success in public life.

No, no, she was not like that at all, but I was brought up to think she was exactly like that, I was waiting for her to come. While she was taking care and visiting to her siblings abroad, one day she would return and takeover her sacred duties, showing me the best type of chignon for my complexion, pulling my brother's ears when he was mean to me, helping my father to put on a jacket before going out to work; but there was no housewife withhold by familial attachments in foreign soil, rather military conflagrations kept her at bay: my mother is known by many as an army man.

I used to be one of those many fortunate ignorant people whose minds rested in habits, those who run their lives with conventional types of attitudes to relate to other normal human beings, but I woke up four years ago. I was thirteen when I realized who that army man really was as I understood that she and my father had been lying to me for the past years.

Today is June 30th of 1807. I haven't seen her in almost the course of a year, but I'm habituated to her long periods of absence, since little other business had maintained her occupied.

She wrote and sent her congratulations to me some time before. The message arrived today and by the date of the letter I gather her quill must have run through the paper I'm holding a little more than two months ago.

I'm engaged to be married, this is the reason for her message, perhaps my father wrote letting her know, as she was out of the country partaking of the planning of another campaign and unable to come and visit by the time Francois propose to me. "The younger, the better" people say when they hear I'm only seventeen. It turns me into a quite successful woman at their eyes I believe, for an important goal of my life has been completed now.

That's what mother calls it in the letter, "Important goal" and then as she was aware that I have achieved it she wrote "I'm proud of you"

Well, it is a goal. Girls whose parents are able to afford for them specialized instruction in the field, as in the competitive field of the best wives and mothers of the empire, have a better chance to achieve "The goal". It is not because they're in love that they get a husband.

I just happened to be lucky, affection is well favored in my little social circle, therefore I wasn't obliged, but I managed to fit in the pattern of "those girls" all the same. I'm one of the pupils within a famous institute for young girls located in Saint Germain, where in the classroom you ought master the art of obedience, meekness and charm. As I acquired the appearance of a well educated lady, I was hammered by phrases such as "your husband's needs are before yours", "is not polite to talk about yourself" and "a lady shows nothing" you were reproached when you happened to show some skin or lace and they made you seat and cross one ankle behind the other to cover that valuable piece of equipment between your legs that you are to save for the best bettor: keep it clean, white, brand new, immaculate Cover it up!

When I remember those three years of training I realize how many friends I made, but most of them had something in common, something I didn't shared with them: from their part we were being turned into decent girls, worthy of being praised by every artifice we happened to take in within ourselves. I happened to be praised in many occasions by the fine results, but behind every work there's a craft: It was as though you were taught to use an eraser on a blackboard filled with interesting and valuable information. As you rub it out, before you white dust is swirling over, hovering over people's heads like a spirit. Swamped in the beauty of impermanence you don't see how late it is, for that residue of what you used to be probably someone will breathe it in to then spray it in a sneeze. Suddenly you don't even realize that that is what you've turned yourself into. Spit.

But no one saw anything wrong with it. I was wrong, so I did what was expected of me: look the other way and keep that to myself.

My mother, being all that she is, couldn't help either but to master the art of disappearance: White dust floating in a whirlpool, I felt the current of air on my cheeks but before my eyes she passed unnoticed for a significant amount of time, a time that is of course forever lost.

Mother was and is currently invisible as we all women are; she was groomed by her father to act like a valiant honorable gentleman, so when people see her and talk to her they think they're addressing to a bright gifted one from the ruling gender.

Appearances fit better with the schemes of the world.

When I was little the mental picture I had of her was a tender, happy, downy first time mother filled with illusions about her beautiful offspring. Now, knowing the truth, I imagine her seventeen years ago as a long stick with a fat full moon at the level of the bellybutton, swollen feet and hands, at last with a set of visible bosoms over her ironed chest (which I inherited from her, thank you very much), but with that glamorous duck walk style that allows pregnant women to pace only for less than a meter before hips and back give in to the world globe they carry in tow. For sure she was terrified about her own body growing stuff, about all these intriguing processes that were nothing that she ever dreamed while growing up, for to have children was not a goal she was spurred on to aspire by her father and least of all by giving birth to two babes at once. My brother Alexandre came first, and then, two minutes later, I did. I believe that for six hours we kept her in labor and at the start of the 15th day of April of 1790, we were out of her.

_Twins?, _she must have thought and then perhaps she frowned when looking down at us, sleeping in our cradles, giving her a little rest before crying for her milk. We shared the same limited space for months, but we didn't turned to be identical: he's a blue eyed boy and me, a green eyed girl, he always had a visible body but I only recently developed a decent shape, not the most spectacular one, but considering what I left behind, a twig with little knots, muscles and flesh have indeed found their way into a more graceful looking like figure. We share the same dull hair and when we stand under the sun our friends feel challenged (when they're truly bored I think) to guess if it's the real mythical blond or the dirty version, that one that's almost but it's really not enough to claim the godly title and your place in Mount Olympus… It doesn't really matter; when Alex and I were little our mains were a representation of how murky our father's answers got to be in regards to our mother.

It implied a lot of hard work to keep the truth from us, but father did a creditable job.

We should have known from the beginning that there was something wrong in the romantic description he gave us of his wife, a profile that used to be conventionally ideal, hardly original but effective: tall, blond haired, white skin, rose-colored lips and cheeks, and from here he added some dull poetry to his words: a golden goddess, a handsome, talented, intelligent woman, in possession of a rare yet beautiful heart… blah, blah, blah, inevitably my brother yawned and father conveniently forgot to add some details to the tale, but why would he, we fill in the blanks for him with what we thought as obvious, a fancy dress cladding the perfect figure he'd just described. It was enough information for us to identify her amidst a whimsical collection of children's literature; the female character is ethereal, angelical, ghostly, rice paper see-through, the vision that is always acceptable.

We thought we had it all, or about to have that is. Barely enough material my brother and I had to form a real image but we didn't knew that or exactly why the picture kept slipping from our fingers: the way our family is supposed to be, all members present and in proper function, like the Chatelet for example; they're a little family but, you got all the pieces going: the father Bernard Chatelet, the mother Rosalie Chatelet and their son and my fiancé, Francois Chatelet.

By my future mother in law I learned that my parents tried to make things work, but if you ask me foundations must have been a bit fickle, for our moment in the sun as a family, lasted about two years after Alex and I were born and then suddenly…

PUFF!

Collapse: The spell was broken, her dress shape shifted into a uniform and the person we were told about was actually gone.

It was hard to admit but, is better for me when I don't idealize, that way I can let go and continue. Recently I came to the conclusion that we never were a family, we're something else, yet to be defined and classified within an encyclopedia, for you got the two children, my father and that wife of his that's around somewhere doing god knows what; someday you will find under the letter P _proto-family _or something and maybe we'll fit in there.

Henceforth, I'm prepared to build up my own life.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's notes: Hello again! I came back with a long, long chapter...I think i got right...i think..hmmm... Well, the bibliography that i'm using you'll find it bellow and i think that's it.

I hope you like this new chapter, i'm not the best writer but i hope you enjoy it. Please read and review, do not be afraid to send your comments.

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><p><strong><span>SIDE<span>**

I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM AT THIS POINT EXACTLY.

In the dining room of some house without a doubt but, that is all I can make out according to the sixteen chairs placed around a square table. The location of the household is unknown.

As I try to figure how I got here and why, I watch for some hint, even the smallest one will do. Its architecture and design is similar to other dwellings I've been in and around the city but, it could be any of them really; great in their own splendor of yore, baroque and rococo golden volutes braiding over the present that now is all classic white and plain lines. Simplicity and a somewhat demure spirit it's all over, you can find that everywhere you go; draped over furniture, tapestry and other designed articles like brass clocks. All that makeover is like an attempt to outshine the past; our new fashion compensating the excesses of the monarchs that our parents killed at the end of the last century.

I go in search of someone to tell me where I am, to tell me the way back to my home, which is the last place I want to be in, but now is my salvation.

I step into many rooms, parlors, dormitories, kitchens, dining rooms, but no one is here to welcome me or banish me out of the private premises. It's odd, for it is not a cobwebbed, dusty, abandoned dwelling in the middle of nowhere, on the contrary: all is in order; beds are done, meals, tables are set, floors are clean and furniture is polished, the smell of the beeswax is still hovering over. The place is immaculate.

Someone is inside, but I don't know whether I should feel hope or terror because of this. I feel both, though, and keenly, my hands are sweating and something cool is running along my spine.

I try not to make a sound, breathe even is too much noise, I keep quite in case if I happen to hear any sign of the individual who's in charge, a housekeeper maybe. I make a second tour but who ever keeps the house clean and alive, is made out of smoke or dust. I can hear my heart pounding, and don't know if the sound of wooden chairs cracking under some weight, is real. I don't know if the brush of fabrics purling is coming from someone moving nearby, I feel in company but I see no one around. Ice is slithering between my skin and muscles, my nerves link to many curious eyes that say nothing, that don't want to help me at all. I want to go home, but where is that exactly, where is home?

I start: Finally I hear some voices. I run to the source, my ears say these are outside but, when I reach the entrance hall, I see that where there's supposed to be a door there's a tiny little window. Either way I get to it to learn who is outside.

A group of men are the ones procuring a bit of relief in my heart, to hear these fleshy creatures talking gives me hope. I don't have much time though, they're saddling out, mounting their horses. I hit the glass with my palms –Monsieur! – I scream.

All of them have a civil aspect, well brought, elegant, in fashion with the outing in which they're embarking upon. I try to open the window but I can't get to any lock, actually within a second I see there aren't any locks. I feel I'm suffocating, that the air is hot and heavy –Monsieur! – I call as loud as can once more, but the only one who has not saddled yet catches my eye. My heart starts to pace down; he smiles at me, his gesture is gentle and reminds me of Alex when he's in a good mood. I think I can trust him, I think he will come and speak to me and take me out –Monsieur! - I call again, but he waves me goodbye, mounts and follows the others while I keep screaming. They swamp into a deep forest while I slam my hands against the glass, begging them not to leave. Is useless, even the idea of breaking the glass with the mantel clock. Not the slightest crack the impact provokes.

I'm trapped.

I see the greenery of the forest, the huge cool blue shadow it projects, open skies and free birds flying over it but I see no other alternative for me.

I get away from these joke of a window, reengage my search but this time for a way out.

I turn about over and over into the same rooms, I cannot make out anything about this place, it doesn't make sense: in every turn I get to confirm that doors were never part of the structure where I'm in. Closing, Opening: two words that aren't part of the architects' vocabulary. Either way I'm caught and exhausted, I can't breathe in anymore.

I stop in one of the parlors just because I can't go around anymore. Inside, pretty settees and arm chairs are gather around a table, tea is served, I can see the steam coming out of the hot beverage served in six dainty little cups: "The reunion of invisible dwellers" my father said when the ten year old I used to be arranged the china in such a way: a dinner party for my dolls. But the pottery never slid across the table or floated over the air.

I step away, my back stumps against a picture window.

My left hand reaches the glasses and my right hand part of the wall as my body moves closer. My mind is too slow to perceive anything, to prevent what's coming, to understand why I feel tickles in my right hand. When I turn my attention to it I cannot explain why the white canvas of the wall is turning pink, just like the rosy cheeks of a young virgin. The surface of the wall is twirling, has lost all solid consistency, the aspect of it is like when you stir milk with a spoon, creamy waves reaching the edges of your cup. My hand has passed over the barrier and what happens next, makes me think on the mantel piece act; peeled off from the table by the magician, but all the elements and meals served are left intact over the naked wood. In here, the wall is the magician and I'm the table, ready and served. The magician does the trick and neatly sucks in my skin leaving me bare. Suddenly I get a glimpse of my own body and my mouth opens in awe. I can't scream, my voice it's gone.

The color of life is not only green, is red. I'm red, I'm red alive… amazingly alive, I can see that wonder and witness my own painful act of being, of existing. But the act is not complete, this is an act of disappearance: I'm still being yanked in to be part of an old structure: I'm being eaten and I understand why that whole house is so empty. Is so quick and sharp, like a scream, disgusting like a slurp, the snap of two fingers: holding me in, never letting me go. A second snap comes and it shakes me.

-Isabelle! Wake up! – I hear, it's a high pitch voice, a familiar voice, but is not easy to hold on to it while I'm still being prickled and nibbled. Only the burning feeling of a palm makes that voice more real: a third snap – Stop! You're having a nightmare!

After being awake in jolts, I open my eyes. I see the yellow light of a candle warming my friend's face: Aurore. She's lean by the side of my bed looking at me, her redden hair ruffled, hazel colored eyes wide –Now you were wailing, what are you going to do next time? Jump out the bed or punch me?

-Punch you – I say as I rub the cheek she slapped to pull me out of the nightmare - I'm alright now – I say, I lift my head and look about recognizing our room within our Institute, it feels so good to be in here, even in here where hours never seem to pass: a world outside the world where we're in, but inside.

-This needs to be stopped – annoyed she says as she gets up and takes the candlestick she'd placed over my night table to attend me, but doesn't return to her bed immediately, she stands over and checks me. I look up and see her shaking her head, for a few days I've been interrupting her sleep.

-I told you not to look those creepy books before sleeping

-You read them as well– I fend

She scoffs, whisks away and tucks herself into her bed.

-Its human anatomy – I insist as I try to seat – There's nothing creepy about our own body.

-I'm not the one that's being peeled off in one of her dreams again – she says and rounds her lips, sticking them out in a little "O" ready to blow over her candle.

-Keep it lit– I say – I can't sleep anymore.

-Well I certainly can! – she wines - is four o'clock in the morning! – and turns off the light anyway.

I stare at the dark and think that this is the most obnoxious nightmare I have had so far. I think about my mother too. I remember that soon after we found out about her secret the Piece of Amiens came to a close and that only meant plenty of work for her, as war was coming. She left, and only after a year I saw her again. Sometimes, when your carriage stops in a not so decent district I hear angered mothers, most of the time they're yelling to a child's face, seems like the cause of their unhappiness is always the same. I remember one time asking my mother if the first time she left had something to do with my brother and me.

She'd turned pale, her jaw had set, her eyes had moistened yet hadn't spilled a drop "Don't ever say something like that again!" she'd warned, from the waist up she was trembling as though she was about to explode "Do you understand!"

I'm really a dreadful liar. When Alex wanted me to cover him it was only because he was truly desperate. When father interrogated us, my nerves betrayed me and I started laughing. Even under the threat of Oscar's lousy temperament I just couldn't make up the reply she wanted to hear.

I had shaken my head, already shrunk in my corner. Her imposing figure was growing even taller or I was growing smaller. From little I knew that Oscar was not a person to be trifled with. Indeed she wasn't, as no word was heard coming out of my mouth she walked over me and grabbed my hands, I could feel a tight powerful grip, I thought that if she wanted to she might as well mash up my bones. But I saw two tears running down her cheeks.

"Listen to me! You're not to be blamed, none of you, not even your father!"

Well, she discarded all the alternatives, except to herself.

LATELY I'VE BEEN THINKING THAT I'M LIKE A CLAMSHELL: Coming out from a sticky situation to then step into another: daughter comes out from messy family to then step into matrimony… I'm such an ungrateful monster to be thinking this way!

Our parents agreed to our engagement under one condition "You're too young still" father had said to justify it.

The condition is that until my future husband holds a steady income there will be no wedding. Francois finishes with his secondary studies this month of July. Afterwards he's to work and study at the university and find a position to sustain us. "In two years you'll be ready" Monsieur Chatelet had said to his son who'd immediately retorted back with a protest.

My own feelings took me by surprise though; I had felt so relieved when I heard Chatelet Sr., much more when my father reinforced his convictions. Then, when my fiancé started to bate them I felt guilty. It was very practical to use that abhorrent feeling to put on the face of a disappointed female lover, because I hadn't come up with anything to say on our favor: acting out as a vulnerable creature at their mercy was the best I could do.

I love him, I said yes to his proposal didn't I? I had run to him, filled with excitement I had kissed him and said yes. But not even an hour passed and I started to feel uncomfortable as though I wanted to step out of my own skin. What is to become of me in a few more years, because I know what is expected of me: what will it feel like while he's looking up, chasing his career.

"Your main virtue is patience" one of our instructors says, and that's good, you need your patience to deal with a bunch of needy children, cooking and waiting to a husband but, is that all I am to be patient for?

According to texts books that the Institute has handed us over the last three years, authors like Bouilly say; that we are responsible of building new virtuous, well constituted families in the Empire.

That's a very positive enterprise too, but a few spots have been opened to study at the School of Midwifery, known by many as La Maternité. To apply I needed the following documentation: My birth certificate, a parental authorization, father's certificate of citizenship and a letter of authorization from the mayor of the arrondissement to certify that I'm a respectable citizen without criminal records.

By letter I had asked Father to take me to perform all formalities; His signature, his words, his presence validated everything; the set of manly parts and embers giving weight and consistency to mine, always. But before doing all this he made me a call at the Institute to put me to a process. As a well educated man, before going to the point he performed a boring introduction to the subject: smoothly he went through my daily activities, asking about my courses, my performance in each one, if had any problems relating with my classmates or my teachers.

As we started walking under a grove, he finally went to the point.

"Francois is aware of your plans, I'm sure" he'd enquired. I did really did try, but when I turned my head to him, he stopped; his curious eye was waiting for me.

"Yes" I lied, because I didn't want to hear what he, Monsieur Grandier had to say, but he saw right through me of course.

Maybe it was because I bitted my lips too long before answering, because he started to shake his head immediately "My dear, I don't need to pay a long discourse in regards to this matter, not to you: you know what your place is" he pointed out. I looked at him long and hard, he knew what the cost was of stepping out of one's place, it was not cheap at all.

"I'll have my diploma before the date of our wedding" I had assured him.

"What is the use of a diploma if you won't have the time to exert?"

"Having it" I had said and then I added "It'll be in nobody's way" as in Francois' way.

It was not fair. When Alex entered to an Art Academy there was a dinner party: friends and family involved. Not that I resented that he'd been able to pay for the celebration, as since the age of fourteen he'd been receiving commissioned portraits from a few families in the city. I on the other hand I was judged before a tribunal formed by my fiancé, my future father in law and my father…oh, and Madame Chatelet as the timid audience. I won the case and had the permission to apply. Proving the point "It'll be in nobody's way" had left them quite calmed, except to one person.

We left our parents in the parlor and headed to his mother's kitchen. When Madame Chatelet saw us, she prepared marmalade, butter, cups, saucers, spoons, sugar and tea over a tray and carried it back to her drawing room to serve.

"She forgot the bread" I had said when we were left alone.

"It's in the pantry" Francois signaled "I'll get the knife"

I tilted my head a little where he was heading, I would have rather to get the knife then.

"You shouldn't claim victory yet, you have to wait an acceptance letter, don't you?" I heard him say.

"There's no final word yet, you're right" I had confirmed as I carried the loaf of bread.

He put on the table a board, mostly used to cut the meat, I placed the loaf over.

"What a fortune it is the extension of our engagement, don't you think?" he'd added with a hint of sarcasm as he handed me the knife; the handle to my direction, the steely edge toward his stomach. I said nothing, I took it and started sawing pieces.

After a little while I nodded "If you don't want me to go forward with this, I won't" I had said tilting my head to him, seeing his sardonic pose wobbling. The twisted smile vanished, his narrowed eyes turned into baby blue eyes, the lump on his throat went up and down twice "I won't be able to study when we're married"

He nodded, looking down at the slices of bread, to my fingers and my hands. He took the one with the knife. I released the knife over the table. "Please, I want to do this" I had added and he nodded again.

We are too honest maybe, sometimes so brutally honest that we end up screaming at each other, but no matter what we end up laughing like we were mad. We stared at each other that day and I know he was thinking about the same thing I was.

"What if it grows on you, what if you don't want to leave it when the time arrives?"

We were thinking about my dad.

"I want to have a family, I want to stay with you"

"And I with you" he said, giving a kiss to my hand.

Francois is not like my dad.

I was accepted at the school. I should be happy, this is great news, but I wonder now if he believed me, if he believed that I want to have it all but not if it's without him.

I don't think that a little study from my part will ruin plans for matrimony, will it? After all, is not like I'm my father's wife; wearing a military uniform and leaving my entire family to escalate positions in the army.

I used to think I did not have any recollections from my mother, but I did. The first vivid memory I have is she sticking a piece of coal into my mouth. The piece of coal used to be meat once, honest to God, but she has magical powers to turn nutritious meals into the best type of fuel for your stove.

1794 was not the best of years. Snowy December was rough with all of us, general famine affected the whole country, we were at war, many people had been taken off to prisons thanks to the law of suspects and random trials took as much as former aristocrats' heads as from commoners. I know this now but all I knew then was that there was no food at our home and that father had suddenly vanished. When I asked after him, our cook, Madame Barraud, said that he was at Plessis. Latter on I started to associate that word with _plaisir_ or pleasure, and I thought that was a nice place to be in, now I know that it was about a prison.

We were sent to sleep a lot; we slept by night and for most part of the day, for when there's nothing to eat you nap to cheat on your loins.

I remember that in one of those naps, a hand had tapped over my tummy. When I opened my eyes I saw a blond man I've never met in my life before. Blue eyes, white skin, hair tight up in a queue, dressed with a uniform, sword and gun hanging from his waist "Up you two: We have to leave" the man had ordered and then had turned to Madame Barraud "Dress them and don't let them make a sound". When I asked who he was he said his name was Oscar and that father had sent for him. But father had no way of sending for anyone, least of all to a uniform that had been defending the northern frontiers. Somehow Oscar had learned about our father's imprisonment and that we have been left in vulnerable state. She leaving the lines had put her into a lot of trouble as she was already being supervised by military inspectors, giving to her noble backgrounds she was a perfect candidate for the guillotine. But, that winter afternoon she arrived and we left Paris past midnight, headed for the country sides in Brittany.

When we got there Madame Barraud fell ill, that's how Alex and I ended up under the mercy of Oscar's cooking skills... for at least a day.

To Alex and me, she was a stranger, someone who had said to be a friend from our father. For more than a year she placed us under her care.

For her short temper we felt this was not a person to be trifle with, but Alex started to get along with her: they had a lot in common: they were boys. These boys excluded me from everything.

She was nice and courteous with other women and girls, in later years I would see her being protective and caring like an elder brother with Madame Chatelet. But, when she tried to deal with me in the intimacy of daily life she seemed annoyed and anxious. Sometimes I caught her staring at me from afar, and when near a frown never missed. When she didn't know what to do with me, she handed me to Madame Barraud.

OSCAR FRANCOIS REINIER DE JARJAYES is without a doubt a fascinating specimen of our human race, I cannot deny it as much as I want to. But is too obvious to say that is because he's a handsome, tall, blond haired individual. Fascinating is a word that could go beyond you know: Intriguing or Interesting makes it richer, for then I could talk about someone who trespasses the limits of what's ordinary, what's normal. Then you could even think about someone who's so fascinating that doesn't really fits anywhere.

An outcast.

If I wanted my mother to fit somewhere I would have to turn her around like I would with one of my stockings, but not even that would do.

When I look back in time, I think that I got to know this person's intricacies in age periods, and I can classify these for you in three: First; from age four to six. Second: from seven to thirteen. And third: from thirteen and still running until someone or something ushers me out of the world of the living.

From the age of four to seven Alex and I knew Oscar as an army man, a top officer, and our father's oldest and best friend. That during the Old Regime once was, but no more, the sole legitimate heir of the house of Reynier and of the title of Comte de Jarjayes that his mother was Marguerite Henriette Quetpée de Laborde and his Father, General Francois Augustin Reynier de Jarjayes; both currently émigrés.

In age period number two, that is from the age of seven, our reality bounced for the first time when Oscar told my brother and me what had happened for her to be known as a man since her infancy. She had no choice but to, when my brother rushed into one our guest rooms back home, where she stayed in one night, a week after returning from Battle fields in Italy. It was early morning, my brother was an early riser, he wanted to play with the recently arrived revolutionary officer, but he'd caught him using the _basin de nuit_; to make it even more clear or embarrassing for Oscar, Alexandre realized that to use the tin artifact, the officer had to hunker down like any other women had to in order to pee in it. She of course had felt scandalously violated in her privacy by this nosy little boy who had seen her but cheeks in such compromising position.

There will be hell to pay! I can still hear her howling after him.

As he was trying to escape from an assent from her, he rushed screaming into my bedroom, jumped over my bed, cupped both of his hands around my ear and told me the utmost secrecy, a minute before he started to wail on the cause of the one and painful spank he would get from the odd lady. But no reprimand would turn back time after what my brother told me "Oscar's butt is just like yours!"

When we were little, Celine our oldest maid, came to our rooms to wake us up every morning and make our toilette. Before washing our hands and faces, she placed amidst the bathroom two little basins, when Celine pulled our clothes down before ordering us to seat down over them, I saw my brother's front and behind and he too saw my angles. In no time he figured that something was missing in my front, just like Oscar has something missing over hers.

Oscar's father saw that too, he was expecting the heir who would continue with the Jarjaye's family traditions, but as he got but five daughters behind this last one, he decided to be creative: since December 25th of 1755, everyone who was somebody in France got acquainted or heard about Oscar Francois, the General's long expected "SON".

Indeed there's a short distance between a genius and a lunatic. Make of that what you will.

Everyone has an opinion.

My mother is a beauty, you might say that she's even a good person, but not what I would call pleasant company; wry, of volatile character, unforthcoming, headstrong, bossy, superior ways of yore… a delightful creature to engage into a conversation, don't you think? At one point you feel so unwelcomed that you might find yourself searching for a way out to leave, instead of staying to pay homage to her golden curls, still golden in spite of her age; the first you can choose if you have nothing to lose but because of father I was always obliged to do the second, grudgingly, for I would have rather to evaporate landing over warmer climates: whenever she gazed at me I felt a silent reproach. But what annoyed me the most was seeing my father's eye following her, five senses at her service. My own jealousy had ravaged me and until the age of thirteen I had to suppress my urge to scratch her eyes out, mainly because I didn't stand a chance before her.

Finally, the third and last stage of acquaintance with her started to develop little after I turned thirteen, yet quite miserably: I didn't want to know anything about her, but that desire was more wrapped up in anger back then. Now there's numbness, no emotion, I only think the same thing because I don't see the use of knowing more about her.

WHY MY BROTHER AND I WERE DECEIVED? YOU MIGHT WONDER. I still wonder. Perhaps it was due to the same reason why everyone else was and continues to be deceived.

Indeed, appearances fit better with the schemes of the world, according to appearance it's easier to tag all things into categories and species and races and sex and so on and on and on, we create a system that keeps our lies (lives) in order. This is not simple whim but a way to contain and process a great quantity of information out there in the universe. If something does not have the right tag we cannot seem to understand it, if we don't understand it we attack it and destroy it.

The nice story of our mother, the lie, contains the one that no one wants to see. Father's deepest fear was us not telling it right. Let me tell you that being a story teller is exhausting.

My brother moved from home at the beginning of March. I on the other hand will have to wait two years to move into my own home. I'll be able to change my name to Chatelet, not that I have to, but each time I'm introduced as Mademoiselle Grandier automatically someone asks "And how is your mother, dear?" If I have to lie again I think I'll vomit.

Like I said I cannot classify my siblings into a category yet, until we're thoroughly studied, as in passing through the six steps of the scientific method. The last I think it to be the most trying one: Communicate results. Is just only that a few rare people like to hear the truth, maybe they don't even like it but they're better equipped to tolerate it.

It's still difficult to communicate "it" to someone else that isn't my brother or Francois or his family, about my findings from four years ago.

I remember the day I barged into my father's things. I had a single purpose in mind: learning about mother's whereabouts. Just that. But of course by now you all know that I've got more than what I bargained for.

The problem about growing up, that is if you were looking for a problem in that, is sprouting: Sometimes I hear the unforgiveable in parents' mouths "You were so easy to handle when you were small" as though you were a parcel to carry and put over some spot inside the house. In their children something very annoying to them grows, a four letter word: WILL. After that the most famous command "Do as you are told" has no effect or very little, like tickles on your ass.

From one day to the other, without notice I started to change, the most noticeable thing for me was the stream of blood running between my thighs, a collective girly phenomena of which I could not speak about out loud: In murmurs I was told I was no longer a girl, but a woman.

I remember looking at my reflection over the mirror; frustration all over my face.

Well, I was a little woman but a woman all the same, as Madame Marchant, our youngest maid, had said minutes after handing me a tower of sanitary pads. From my own experience, when you change you feel rather insecure, spyglasses and microscopes are always upon you; that's exactly the picture.

A few days later, I realized I was being watched under a microscope. Over breakfast father said I was growing into a beautiful young lady.

My cheeks had flushed and Alex had scoffed, spraying the gulp of milk he was about to swallow over his brioche.

"Is time for you to go to a school" father had said with a casual manner at the same time he handed his napkin to his firstborn. "I still have an hour before that torture starts" Alex had mumbled thinking that father had thrown that on him.

I thought that had been for Alex as well, only when I lifted my head above my plate I noticed that it was about me.

There were only boarding schools back then to receive young girls and back then things were pretty much to a boiling point; those were the days of peace and visits from Oscar had turned from seldom to quite often. I think you can imagine how happy I was.

Days behind the woman had taken my brother and Francois to visit the famous barracks. When they were about to leave, they turned around and saw me. Out of pity I ended up meeting the officers and premises of those barracks. Elegant was little to say about them, these were the finest from all regiments.

I was picked from those barracks around midnight, because Oscar had forgot she'd took me in with them.

"I knew these would happen" I had sulk.

"What, dear?" father had asked.

"First she forgets about me and now she's luring you to put me into one of those schools" I'd mumbled. Father started to shake his hand almost immediately.

"Well, if you weren't scowling at her she would probably not even think about it" Alex had said

"I don't scowl at her she does that to me! And who does she think she is to decide what is good for me!" I had argued.

"Be quiet you two!" father had snapped.

"I don't want to leave!" I said anyway and he left his seat and reached for me.

I hated the idea of not being able to sleep in my own home, of not kissing him good morning or even being teased by Alexandre.

"Is not a punishment, I've been thinking about it for quite some time: you need your education and I'm not in the position of giving you one" he'd said holding my hand. If anything my father's aura was reassuring, it was a positive energy, even now I get comments from his colleagues and few friends he keeps, they look at him and think why _would anything go wrong in Grandier's life?_ But that morning his own children started peel over his ever present smile, it cracked like old rusted paint over a wall.

"You're not, but Mother is able" I had began "If she was here now- -"

"Indeed, but she's not" he'd cut in my phrase, trying to fade out that frown between his eyebrows.

"Make her come back and the problem will be solved" Alex had eagerly suggested "She's your wife" had added matter-of-factly.

"Is not that simple" father said after a snort.

"Why?" I asked. I was about to say _because she's your wife_, because indeed being a wife was a condition that gave to my father much power over my mother. We hadn't seen him exerting that power over her.

Nevertheless, if you think he gave me a reason why, you're quite naïve. I remember him choking with his own saliva, looking at me hard after my query. His expression had reminded me the one from Alexandre whenever he's about to be quizzed at school: The-I'm-finished-type-of-look. "This is it" he says, but then inhales and adds "So be it" and dives into the carriage that'll take him to the place he hates the most.

Father had held his breath, resisting. He urged us to finish our food as he got up and left. Days after I began to notice that he run from me just like that, in every single meal, suddenly I was not such a pleasant company to him anymore.

But he took his time in finding a school for me, made enquiries with his friends and acquaintances and a year after I learned about his secret he put me in the Institute where I am now. I was glad to be an intern then, of not seeing him every morning. I had started my escape then.

THERE'S SOMETHING ALLURING AND AT THE SAME TIME TERRIFYING ABOUT PARIS WHEN IT GROWS DARK. From the view of the third floor in the house of rue de l'Odeon, where the Chatelet live, you can see fireflies, all of them floating over a black lake. From it they're born at dusk and near dawn the lake nibbles them whole. What's underneath I've never wanted to find out, but it hypnotizes me when I look; Francois says that the feeling is natural. He says "At the edge of a cliff, if you don't kneel and crawl, gravity pulls you down".

But I wasn't going to kneel, if I was going to be pulled I didn't care. I was thirteen and I didn't care much about consequences, there was a knot in my chest and I had to unravel it.

I used to write to my mother in regular basis but I never questioned why the sending of her responses happened to be so elaborated. A single package with three envelopes inside was addressed not at our house but to father's work office. I wondered about that for a long time but when I told it to Alex he said that it was probably nothing. Is just that, normally Father would send our correspondence directly to mother, so there was no need in us knowing where he sent the letters or to wonder about it.

In a normal day of work there will be no one else inside our house but the three maids and the gardener that maintained our home in order. Alex would be at the school and Father would be in the Latin Quarters, at the University. With other men he worked there as an archivist, not such an appealing job for my brother but I didn't mind, I've always thought it was fabulous to be surrounded by books.

I had allowed myself to search through his desk one afternoon while he was out and away in a labyrinth made out of pages of our history, but the contents in our house were not that revealing for my search; in one drawer he had scribbled notebooks, new sheets of paper, envelopes, ink containers and quills. In another sweet memories of us, like Alex's old sketchbooks, the very first he'd filled with amorphous drawings and finger paintings, also the first letters I had sent him to tell him that I loved him and miss him and you could see that I only had the pretensions to write, for in reality at five I could barely write my own name, all I could do was filling the sheets with hearts and number eights shaped into fluffy cats. I kept digging and found envelopes all tagged with different concerns: His children's birth certificates and identity cards, his own documents were in another, the ones from our mother, then everything in concern to their marriage contract, wills and testaments, the papers of the property where we lived, everything was in place and in order, but the odd thing was that he kept papers from a friend of his inside the same envelope where our mother's papers were. As I didn't know what to make of that then I let it pass, but I got up: the door to the library was open, I was sure I had closed it before…

"What do you think you're doing?" Severe voice had asked, the type that's filled with condemns.

I hadn't even noticed he'd opened the door, his silent figure in a corner, watching amidst the shadows. My blood rose up toward my head, I felt my cheeks burning while my body was left frozen. He'd come during lunch hours to take me with him; he'd done it before. He knew I got bored inside the house alone by myself, and he knew I loved prying and nosing about the facilities where he worked. As I never got myself into trouble there, when work was light he fetch for me.

But what was I suppose to say then? That I wasn't doing anything? What kind of idiot would dare to say that as an excuse!

"Monsieur Oscar's papers are together with my mother's" I had managed "why do you keep them like this…?"

It took me great effort to ask for the right question for all I wanted to do then was to give in, beg him to forgive me, because I was bad daughter, because I was caught red handed and my jaw was shaking; but my anxiety to ask for pardon was being dwarfed by my necessity to know. Before my question, father stared at me in the same way when he learned I was no longer a child, a stranger with which he could not deal with anymore, someone to be thrown in a school and let others to handle.

"Take your things and get warm, it's cold outside" ominous he'd ordered and my sweet father was gone off for a break.

"Where are we going?" I had asked

"Do as I say"

When I was about to pass by him he halt me by taking my forearm "what I'm to tell you you're to keep to yourself, understood?" he'd said as serious as I've never seen him before. When he saw me nodding, he released me.

On the way out he helped me with the hood of my cape and took me for a walk to the nearest park.

I'll never forget that walk. I wish it had never happened actually.

I'm spending my last days of residence in the Institute where I was enrolled. Aurore and I have been accepted in La Maternité.

Her full name is Aurore Constance Pelletier. Her father used to be a chemist and her mother died when giving birth to her; puerperal fever ended with her. Aurore was two years old when her father left this world, then she was handed under the care of an uncle, the only relative she had left from the side of her mother.

Together with another girl, we had entered Madame Campan's Institute for young girls at the same time, that and the fact that we were fourteen seemed to us three like a good omen: For a year we were inseparable and I had two best friends.

After that year Claire drifted apart.

-Watch it – Aurore says to me calmly as she arranges her stems of sage in her basket – there's a bee in that one.

I'm about to cut a lavender stem when I see that over the whorls of little flowers someone is still busy collecting a price. When the bee hums away I cut the stem and place it in my own basket.

-I think we have enough – My friend says as she gets up from the soil.

I nod -You're to spend a lonely afternoon today – I apprise her

-You're heading to meet Francois, I suppose

-I am, the carriage will arrived at seven – I say letting a heavy sigh out.

-I'm sure he'll understand, Isabelle, so stop worrying.

We placed cotton cloths over the soil to kneel over and protect our garments while we collected our herbs but we still used our hands to clear whatever piece of leave or twig might be entangled over our dresses. As we walk back our fingers get busy in placing the locks that happened to escape from pins or combs fixing our chignons back in place. Aurore lifts a hand toward my head, I see a spike of lavender between her fingers when she retrieves it back to join with the rest of her embers, she squeezes the little flowers before nearing them to her nose.

Sage works to protect our breaths and teeth, lavender is to guard our noses from the sudden odors that our dear city sprays out to the atmosphere.

A former Aide from our headmistress taught us these and other tricks with herbs. Like when we bleed and ache every month the best herb to use is chamomile flowers, when you're sad or gloomy take some honeysuckle tea and get your hands busy as soon as possible, because idleness is the worst thing when you start to think on nonsense. Her name was Anna, but for us she was Mademoiselle Bouscat. Now she teaches at the school where Aurore and I are heading soon.

-What did your mother said about your engagement? – Aurore asks, from the corner of her hazel eyes she checks me.

-"Congratulations"- laconic I say

-And about the length of it? I'm sure you didn't tell her but your father must have.

-I don't know what she thinks, but in her position who is she to judge?

I don't know what my mother thinks about all this. I talk as less as possible about her to avoid explaining the complex details of her history and I communicate with her as less as possible to forget that I have to deal with her. Aurore knows about her as well as Claire.

"My goodness, how can someone live like that?" she'd said when I told her, as though I happened to be infected by a mortal decease: freak hood. I don't blame her for taking distance.

Before knowing them our house had already turned into a blaze, I would have take distance myself if I could.

Alex had learned the truth directly from our mother.

After my father took me to that unforgettable walk, immediately after he'd made a call on her explaining the current situation. We've gone to the regiment's main quarters where her office was. My father had asked me to wait out while he took care of the sticky situation, so gladly I did.

I thought I would hear her howling and cursing, but all I remember is how silent everything turned: our family suspended up in the air. I remember the door being opened, she coming out, an expression over her countenance I've never seen before except in Alex, his eyes about to pop out once when he'd put his foot on my way, making me trip and fall. My head banged against an arm chair, red paint had trailed down to paint the entire oval of my cheek _Pére! _He'd screamed in terror_._ My scar is near my left temple, hidden under my hair together with his guilt.

"Bonsoir, Isabelle" she'd said and I replied back with the same salutation. "Come inside, we need to talk" She'd lifted a hand offering it to me as though I needed assistance to climb in a carriage, is not hard to climb one but, I took her hand and stepped inside. It was really much harder to step into her office than to climb in a carriage.

It didn't take her long to leave her chores and come home to face my brother. I didn't cause any fuss when she spoke with me, but if she thought that her son would react in the same manner, she was wrong; he added even more drama.

She found him at the library making a mental wrestling with his books. When he saw her he'd smiled.

Usually, Oscar nagged him about his deficient academic performance, urging him to do better but, the officer took him for rides, to learn fencing, to meet the top officers from the regiment where she commanded: The mounted Horse Grenadier's Regiment. He would rub every experience over his school mates' faces later on, because in way he admired her.

He'd thrown his books to her one by one when she confessed to him, almost all the damned courses: arithmetic, philosophy, history and Latin, he hated them all but not as much as he hated her then. When our father tried to stop him he pushed him and then rammed against him, just like a ram would do.

Shrunk in one of the corners of the room, beside one of the book shelves I watch how father immobilized him over the floor: a wild animal being tamed. It was a nightmare, although I would have rather that to be one, for you usually wake up from them.

Hours later my brother seemed calmed and our parents thought that the worst was already over. But it's when Alex shows himself calmed and centered when you should really pay attention to him; he can get up at any minute and doesn't think twice before acting.

I don't know how he'd managed but without a single franc he'd reached Lyon all by himself. No one was able to find him until two weeks later, filthy as muck.

Father, mother and Monsieur Chatelet made him return.

As Aurore and I tight up bouquets of flowers to be hanged and dried, an aide walks in –Mademoiselle Grandier – she calls me and I turn to her

-Madame Gerard, good morning – I salute with a smile

-Good morning –she salutes back – I came to tell you that your father is here to see you.

My smile fades, my hands stop working -Where is he waiting?

-You'll find him in the garden.

-Thank you – I say and I predispose to take off my apron. I lift my face only to see that no one is near to hear me –Surely is about her.

-Who else will occupy your father's thoughts? – Aurore smirks as she hangs the first bouquet.

-You have a big mouth don't you? – I reproach her while I fold my cloth to then throw it to her head.

-Is the truth – she retorts, catching my apron a second before it hits her face – good luck.

Grudgingly I head back to the courtyard where I had recently shared more pleasant moments with my friend. The puffs of hot air grow my disposition even bitter. This is what has come down to: my father is always by our mother as Alex and I keep distance from them. Father chose her, not us, and whatever he asks from us is only in order to please her somehow.

At a distance I see him, his back at my direction, white roses before him: mother's favorite. When he came to the Chatelet to celebrate my engagement he'd gave me those as a present, knowing that roses were far and away from being my favorite flower he asked in some shop for that bouquet to be arranged for me all the same. He thought that these were more becoming for the occasion to celebrate "Daisies are such a simple flower" he'd said.

"Aren't they indeed" I had muttered. As I arranged the flowers in a vase Francois watched me diverted. I was in the search of a far away unprivileged corner in the house, near a window where the neighbor's cat usually marks mating territory.

"If this thing falls it wouldn't be the worst thing, you know?" I had fumed.

"Are you serious? That's my mother's favorite vase" he'd frowned.

"Really?" I had start, in a second I realized I was being pray of one of his jokes "You idiot!" I hissed throwing him a duster.

"Is a trinket, father picked it out, you'd do mother a real favor" he'd said before nearing to me. He reached for my hands and spread my arms opened with his, like wings "remember that balloon from crazy Garnerin floating over the sky?"

"In Parc Monceau?" I recalled nearing my face to his until our noses touched making a tiny bridge by the tips "Maybe one day we'll be able to get one so you can take me away from here" I had said, closing my eyes.

"Float, just float" he whispered to me and I remembered the time when we first held hands.

And float, just float I keep repeating to myself now as I have father before me.

-Bonsoir, Pére – I say standing by civil costumes.

-Bonsoir, chérie – and he's even more polite than I am, his smile is always agreeable and good natured, irritatingly affable.

-Are there any novelties from her? – I ask before he can say anything else, going straight to the matter that always keeps him preoccupied. He's smile cracks a little; I had interrupted his preambles like dear daughter how are you, have you enjoyed the weather?

-I have – father says and then waits a little, giving me time to ask about her.

-How are you? – I ask instead, I'm not going to please him.

-Everything is fine - he says and I bit my lips as I look at him from head to toes. Last February when we all heard about Eylau he'd said nothing, he'd folded the newspaper we have disposed over a table and told me to ask our maid to bring hot beverages. His ever present cordiality was there for his friends but he was crumbling inside, February was suddenly gone, then March and at length he looked tired and thinner.

-Really? – I couldn't stop that touch of irony –you're fine?

He frowns at me but that's that –Do I really look that bad to you? – he says and I can barely get another reaction from him, now I see a sermon coming-You should learn to look on the bright side dear, otherwise you'll grow bitter – triumphant and unperturbed he says.

-Thank you –I say as I loop a lock of hair behind my ear – I'm sure that'll be a very helpful advice over the years to come, as you speak by personal experience I can see the happy results that wait for me.

He smiles and shakes his head softly as he fixes me with the single eye he was left with when younger. That was another secret of him, he'd never wanted to tell us how he'd lost it – Oh, it helps Isabelle, you can't see it now, you're too young still to realize – condescendingly he says.

I look away and try to hush what is bothering me. When our physician came to check on him Alex had exploded "Why don't you bring that witch back? Tied her down to a chair! You can do whatever you want! He's your wife?" father respond to that by graving him by the neck, warning him that if he ever called his mother a witch again he would not answer for his actions. That day Alex finally moved from the house, he had enough means to leave by himself.

-Are you staying long? – I check and he shakes his head - I'm to see Francois this afternoon – I explain in case if he thinks I'm seeing him out.

-I see – he says – give him my regards to him and his parents.

-Won't you like to go with me? – I ask gingerly and I see him making a nod with a similar gesture, so I proceed to explain - I was accepted at the school.

-Ohh…I see! - he begins teasingly - And you're telling Francois the happy news today – he says rubbing his chin. I smile: I'm guilty.

-These are happy news to me, and if he doesn't see that, then we shouldn't be together – I dare saying

-You remind me of your mother – he chuckles. I don't.

-Please don't – I say with mile wince – is not a trait, I'm not the first woman to say what she wants.

He sighs, softly, his kind gesture is being erased -Can't you be a little more cooperative with me? – he demands but I can't abide: I visualize my father in their bed; One more day turning by her side, finding rays of sunshine over the sheets, but his wife is not among them.

I want to say something to him, be stronger than him and shake him. How could you do this to us! You're the head of this family, you're suppose to keep us together, how could you!

- I don't want to be part of this anymore – I manage.

-You don't have a choice: She's your mother, Isabelle – he says throwing a glare at me as in: you should be ashamed. He keep staring at me, that look carves a whole in my stomach and I can't speak.

-She's returning – I hear him say and I now understand why he's more vibrant –she'll do around July.

-You want me to tell Alex? – I check because I can't go through my speech anymore.

-I doubt he would go to greet her, but yes, you do that – he says a bit annoyed, he tries to cover that with a joke that comes acid in taste though– do that and I'll convince Francois that is actually a good thing to marry you.

I scoff, I try to take bad joke as best as I can.

-That's generous, but only if you truly believe it– I say, my voice turning in a thread as my throat is shutting tight.

He knows me well enough to see that he's wounded me, in a second he's before me embracing me. I rest my head over his shoulder as he cradles me –Don't pay attention to me: You're good girl, Isabelle.

I shake my head, I'm really not good: I want things, I want so many things and I can't have them – Papa…I can't.

-Try, at least try! – he whispers to me. He'd never asked for my help before and that finishes me. He's my beloved father, I can't say no to him.

* * *

><p>From the Salon to the Schoolroom by Rebecca Rogers.<p>

Napoleon and the woman question by June K. Burton.


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